Magic: The Gathering publisher Wizards of the Coast is partnering with Japanese animation studio Wit Studio, which worked on the first three seasons of hit anime Attack on Titan, to produce a “special Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty animation” promoting the upcoming MTG set.
The animation was announced on the official MTG Twitter account on Thursday and will be released on Tuesday February 15, or 3am Wednesday if you’re in the UK (probably one to leave till the morning, but hey, we’re not your dad). It’ll be available on YouTube and is currently set to Premiere on the official Japanese Magic: the Gathering YouTube channel.
As for the animation’s content, the main thing we have to go off is a screenshot of an anime character with long white hair. Presumably this depicts The Wandering Emperor, one of the more prominent movers and shakers in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, who’s central to the plotline of the set. Wizards also says the animation features the latest song by Japanese rock trio Ling Tosite Sigure, so perhaps we should expect some form of music video.
Wit Studio, which is creating the MTG animation, is an animation studio that famously worked on the first three seasons of Attack on Titan between 2013 and 2019. (The final season, currently airing, is animated by MAPPA.) Known for impressive, high-octane action, MTG fans will no doubt be keen to see how the studio which brought the hideous flesh mechs of Attack on Titan to life tackles the more regular mechs of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty.
This upcoming animation is the latest in Wizards of the Coast’s marketing schemes for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. It comes after the firm recruited celebrated Japanese artists (like Katsuya Terada and Yoji Shinkawa) to create special versions of high-profile planeswalker cards, as well as releasing a music video featuring virtual pop icon Hatsune Miku.
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty is coming to tabletop on February 18 and launched on MTG Arena on February 10. Check out our MTG Arena codes guide if you want to start your Arena collection off with three free packs (and try out a bunch of other codes you might have missed). Or if you’d like to know more about what’s coming to Magic this year, here’s the 2022 MTG set release schedule, and here are six of our wildest MTG predictions.